1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method and an ink jet recording apparatus which can record high-quality images on a recording medium.
The method and apparatus in accordance with the present invention are applicable to any device using recording media such as paper, leather, nonwoven fabric, and OHP sheets. Examples of such devices include business machines such as printers, copying machines, and facsimile machines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ink jet recording apparatuses, which emit little noise, can run at low operation costs, can be readily miniaturized, and can readily effect color printing, have been extensively used in, for example, printers and copying machines.
Trends in current ink jet printers are an increase in resolution of nozzles and a reduction in size of ink droplets to improve the quality of recording images. Other trends are increases in density and number of nozzles to increase printing rates.
The present inventors have found the following problems during studies for achieving the formation of high-quality color images by using smaller ink droplets which are suitable for high resolution recording heads.
That is, smaller ink droplets are readily affected by ambient air turbulence and are discharged onto positions which deviate from target positions. Such a phenomenon is significantly noticeable in a xe2x80x9cfull dischargexe2x80x9d mode in which ink is discharged through all the mounted nozzles. Among the ink dots discharged from these nozzles in a nozzle array, ink dots discharged from the outermost positions relatively tend to deviate from the corresponding target positions. In discharge modes other than the full discharge mode, such displacement of discharged ink dots will readily occur as the number of the nozzles in the nozzle array increases, in other words, as the discharge density increases.
Such problems found by the present inventors must be solved for achieving higher-density recording particularly in color imaging.
The present invention can provide an ink jet recording method and an ink jet recording apparatus which can reduce localized recording unevenness due to the displacement of discharged ink positions in recording images and which can provide high-quality images.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a method of ink jet recording includes the steps of discharging an ink from a recording head having at least one nozzle array including a plurality of nozzles for performing recording on a recording medium, and discharging a liquid other than ink from at least two nozzles of the at least one nozzle array of the recording head, wherein the ink is discharged from the inner nozzles of the at least one nozzle and the at least two nozzles for discharging the liquid are disposed at outside of the inner nozzles in the at least one nozzle array.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an ink jet recording apparatus includes a recording head having at least one nozzle array including a plurality of nozzles, the plurality of nozzles including nozzles for discharging an ink and nozzles for discharging a liquid other than ink, wherein the liquid other than ink is discharged from at least two nozzles of the at least one nozzle array and the ink is discharged from inner nozzles adjacent to the at least two nozzles to perform recording onto a recording medium, the at least two nozzles being disposed at outside of the inner nozzles in the at least one nozzle array.
According to the present invention, the colorless liquid droplet functions as a xe2x80x9cwindshield liquid dropletxe2x80x9d and prevents the displacement on a recording medium of the ink droplet discharged from the outermost position in a high-density xe2x80x9cfull dischargexe2x80x9d mode, even when the ink droplet has a fine volume. Thus, the recorded image exhibits high resolution without partial unevenness of recording density.
Further objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.